Latin publication

[Thomas G. Lammers]

At 08:35 AM 03-02-99 -0800, Richard Jensen wrote:

> As an analogy,
>think of all the illustrations that have included a US dime or quarter as a
size
>reference.  I can imagine a time in the future when these coins will be unknown
>and there will be consternation over the lack of clear indication of the
size of
>the objects pictured.

C'mon, Dick!  Even if coinage goes out of daily use, dimensional data will
always be available in the numismatic literature.  If Theophrastus had said,
"About the diameter of a tetradrachma ...", you could find out how big that
was.  The *real* problem in this regard is when you're doing field work
overseas and only have local geld in your pocket -- you  have to "convert"
to US currency everytime you show the picture!

>Yes, it is a "hardship" to have to learn to read and (even more so) write
Latin.

I disagree, at least as regards the English-speaking world.  I say that
anyone with a sound command of English (perhaps *that* is too much to assume
these days) can pick up Stearn's "Botanical Latin" and write a serviceable
Latin diagnosis inside of an hour.  (I do not know if similar "cookbooks"
are available in other languages.)    Diagnoses are largely just a noun like
"Arbor" or "Herba" followed by a string of nouns in ablative case with
adjectives that have to match in number; no verbs to worry about aside from
"is" and "differs".  We're not talking Virgil here!   Yes, Rupert Barnaby
and folks of his scholarly generation can make them far more elegant, but
almost anyone who can read Stearn can write a serviceable, grammatical
correct, Code-compliant diagnosis without any hardship.

>Good editors will not accept poor descriptions.  And, if the descriptions are
>poor, this can be used as a basis for invalidating the name.  All that would be
>necessary is to demonstrate that the description provided fails to
differentiate
>the proposed taxon from an already existing taxon.

Can you quote me chapter and verse on that?  This situation may lead you to
place a validly published name in synonymy, but I don't think it is
sufficient grounds for denying that it is validly published in the first
place.  But you are correct in your main point: it is up to the peer review
process to see that inadequate diagnoses are not published.  Switching the
language required is no guarantee of increased competence.





Thomas G. Lammers

Classification, Nomenclature, Phylogeny and Biogeography
of the Campanulaceae, s. lat.

Department of Botany
Field Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, Illinois 60605-2496 USA

e-mail:    tlammers at fmnh.org
office:          312-922-9410 ext. 317 (voice-mail)
fax:                312-427-2530

-----------------------------------------------------
"The most important thing to learn is how
   to teach yourself.  Everything else ...
   is just detail."
                                  -- Patrick Gibson